"By a certain light, this is the first time that the British director’s vision will be seen properly."

"The restoration contains censored moments once thought lost, like frenzied, naked nuns writhing sexually on a giant crucifix or a Mother Superior (Vanessa Redgrave) making love to a phallic bone fragment.... The uproar makes sense in context. 'When people saw the film, because Ken’s imagery is so visceral, they were shocked by it,'  said the critic Mark Kermode, who befriended Russell in the 1990s and was instrumental in finding the lost footage and reintegrating it into the director’s cut.... Yet Russell, who died in 2011 at 84, was adapting a respected 1952 nonfiction book, 'The Devils of Loudun' by Aldous Huxley, and a stage version by John Whiting that followed in 1961. The plot centers on a Roman Catholic priest, Urbain Grandier (Reed), who unabashedly pursues sexual relationships with women, but also presides over the walled city of Loudun as a sort of secular stronghold where Catholics and Protestants live together peaceably."

From "In 1971, This Film Was a Scandal. In 2026, It’s a Respected Period Piece. 'Ken Russell’s The Devils' was deemed shocking for scenes with orgiastic nuns and a debauched priest. But its serious aims are clear in a new restoration" (NYT).

I can't remember how I was ever able to see this film, but I did see it, I believe in the 70s, and for many years I'd always include it on my very short list of favorite films — along with "Aguirre the Wrath of God" and "My Dinner With Andre." Clearly, I had a taste for a certain sort of male character! I have no idea how this film would strike me today. But I think it would resonate with present-day themes: a strong political man ruined over his sexual acting out and women who lose their rationality when overexcited by sex and politics.

As Kermode puts it: "It is really a brilliantly serious, heartfelt story about brainwashing, about the politicization of religion, about the use of hysteria."

Speaking of naked writhing and early 70s films the critics panned, I got through "Zabriskie Point" the other day. Not good. Seems to say if only you can be young, beautiful, and naked — and kick up a big cloud of white dust while having intercourse in a barren landscape — you can save the world. I was worried about the dust — borax?!— and the damage to the landscape — Death Valley  and I couldn't even believe those 2 crazy lovers could enjoy their gritty play. We're supposed to think they do because the camera pulls back and shows the landscape full of naked couples simulating sex. Who are they? Where did they come from? Answer: This is art. They're an idea.

"The process of note-writing helps me formulate my medical decision-making and then check whether it really holds up...."

"When that cognitive labor is offloaded to a machine, I’ve come to see, my job shifts. Even when I try to speak my reasoning aloud for the A.I. scribe, I am still doing something different from writing the note myself. I am no longer using the note, sentence by sentence, to think through the case in my own words, to decide what to emphasize, what to soften — or, as I’m writing, to identify when my reasoning strains. And unlike when I dictate a note, I can’t watch my own phrasing appear on the screen in real time. With the A.I.-generated note, I am instead auditing afterward. I am playing a version of 'Where’s Waldo?' — What’s missing? Has this note gone astray, and if so, where? — and it’s a search made all the more difficult because the A.I.’s draft arrives fluent, confident. It sounds so right."

Writes Helen Ouyang, in "How A.I. Might Change the Way Doctors Think/For generations, writing up a summary of a patient exam was a vital step for physicians trying to make an accurate diagnosis. What happens when A.I. does it for them?" (NYT).

"That cognitive shift does not happen the moment the A.I. scribe delivers a note. It begins in the exam room. Because I know A.I. is recording, I stop listening in the same way. Before A.I. scribes arrived, I would outline a story in my head as a patient talked, fitting the pieces together so I would know what to ask next. In the scribe’s presence, that work is deferred. Let the machine do it! The mind drifts."

"Untethered from reality."

I'm reading "Live Updates: Ninth Circuit Questions Why President Can’t Send National Guard Into Portland/A judge in Chicago is still hearing arguments on the Trump administration’s plans to send troops there. Both cases center on the legal limits of a president’s power to order troops into American cities against the will of state and local authorities" (NYT):

The federal case in Oregon turns, in part, on the amount of deference the courts must give to the president’s decisions about when and where to deploy the National Guard. The federal government is arguing that the courts cannot review those deployment decisions at all. Stacy Chaffin, who is representing Oregon before the appeals court, the Ninth Circuit, told the panel of judges on Thursday that the usual policy of deference did not apply if the president’s assessment of the situation in Portland was “untethered from reality.”

ADDED: It might seem crazy to have a legal test premised on connection to reality, but I think we are that crazy. The "rational basis" test is used all the time. It's important to see that the President is asking for even less scrutiny than that. He's arguing that his decision is unreviewable.

"I ask Pinker whether we are witnessing an anti-rationality backlash. He suggests..."

"... what we’re seeing is 'greater inequality in irrationality.' Sport has never been more rational: nowadays in America every team has a statistician. Also, 'there’s more evidence-based medicine' than before. But 'at the same time as that, irrationality has gotten absolutely entrenched at the highest levels of power in the United States.' He thinks the roots of the problem may be partly traced to 'the politicisation of science.' During Covid there were 'hundreds of public health experts saying that it’s OK to go out in Black Lives Matter protests' because 'the benefits of social justice outweigh the costs of spreading Covid.' They would not have said the same had it been 'say, a Maga rally.' He cites a number of similar examples, including an academic journal that promised to 'consult members of indigenous minority groups before deciding whether to accept scientific papers' and a science magazine that endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. Such things 'erode the credibility of science.' He says: 'If science as an institution brands itself as on the political left, it should be prepared to alienate and maybe kiss off the American right.'"

From "Steven Pinker: I’m pinned between cancel culture and Trump/The Harvard psychologist talks to James Marriott about the campus ‘woke’ left and the Republican campaign to defund universities" (London Times).

Who thinks what about the Epstein files?

The Washington Post has a poll and graphics like this:

Here's a gift link.  Check it out. I think it's interesting to see who thinks what. I'd like to ask them why. Obviously, Democrats are hot to think ill of Trump. But why aren't they more concerned that there's bad stuff about Democrats in there? There needs to be some reason why the Biden administration didn't release this information when it was so desperate to stop Trump in 2024. But the way of the human mind is not reason. It is wishful thinking. We are optimists, even about scurrilous ugly things.

"I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia."

"We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects. We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering, that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and we, likewise, lost so many! We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, 'COMMON SENSE.'"

Writes President Trump, on Truth Social.

"[D]octors who were given ChatGPT-4 along with conventional resources did only slightly better than doctors who did not have access to the bot."

"And, to the researchers’ surprise, ChatGPT alone outperformed the doctors....  The chatbot, from the company OpenAI, scored an average of 90 percent when diagnosing a medical condition from a case report and explaining its reasoning. Doctors randomly assigned to use the chatbot got an average score of 76 percent. Those randomly assigned not to use it had an average score of 74 percent. The study showed more than just the chatbot’s superior performance. It unveiled doctors’ sometimes unwavering belief in a diagnosis they made, even when a chatbot potentially suggests a better one. And the study illustrated that while doctors are being exposed to the tools of artificial intelligence for their work, few know how to exploit the abilities of chatbots. As a result, they failed to take advantage of A.I. systems’ ability to solve complex diagnostic problems and offer explanations for their diagnoses...."

Writes Gina Kolata, in "A.I. Chatbots Defeated Doctors at Diagnosing Illness/A small study found ChatGPT outdid human physicians when assessing medical case histories, even when those doctors were using a chatbot" (NYT).

It seems that there are systematic problems with the thought processes of doctors. I wonder how A.I. would have addressed the myriad problems of the covid pandemic — that is, A.I. without the interference of experts. Will studies like this result in doctors questioning their own thinking patterns?

"Perhaps no previous politician has taken up the mantle of Dad in quite the way Tim Walz has."

"From late summer’s Vice-Presidential pageant of Democratic middle-aged American white men, Walz emerged as an avatar of football-coaching, social-studies-teaching, father-figure affability, and this appeal helped carry him past arguably more strategic choices to a spot on the Harris ticket.... Walz embodies a model of nontoxic masculinity the Harris campaign has hoped to represent with such outreach as the 'White Dudes for Harris' fund-raising Zoom. 'Weird'—Walz’s inspired epithet for magaleadership—was delivered in a tone of goshdarnit perplexity, and with it, he laid claim to the role of norm-setting paterfamilias. The other guys were the basement-dwelling nephews and conspiracy-theorizing uncles.... The idea of fatherhood that Vance and his pronatalist ilk present is at once maximally literal and maximally abstract: it is a matter of gametes and hormones on one hand and social order on the other. In contrast, Walz’s rendition of fatherhood conveys an identity rooted in particularity—the reality of particular children, particular parents, a particular shared life...."

I'm reading "Tim Walz and J. D. Vance’s Battle of the Dads/Duelling visions of fatherhood will define the Vice-Presidential debate" by Mollie Fischer (in The New Yorker).

Abstract versus particular... dad.

I don't know if that's a fair representation of either man (or the theater surrounding them), but it makes me think about the way human beings can reason from the abstract or the particular. For example, in a legal case, one could begin with an abstraction like fairness or equality, listen to arguments by ideologues, and then decide what will be done, in the future, when particular cases arise, or one might wait for a concrete controversy between adversaries with a real stake in the outcome and then work from the particular to a rule that can be stated in the abstract.

Do you like things in context or out of context — abstract or concrete — when you're doing your own thinking? When you're stuck relying on the decisions of others?

"I told [my 12-year-old daughter] she needed to read because novels are the best way to learn about how people’s insides work."

"She said she could learn more from watching the people she followed on social media, who were all about spilling their insides. I said books offered storytelling. She said, 'Netflix.' I said books taught history. She said, 'The internet.' I said reading would help her understand herself and she said, 'Um, no thank you. I’ll just live.' I promised, extravagantly, that I’d buy her all the books she wanted and construct bookshelves in her room, so that she could see the spines of all the books she loved from her bed. She said, 'Mama, welcome to your dream.'... So I decided to cut through all the reasoning.... I told my 12-year-old I would pay her $100 to read a novel.... $100 if she finished the book within a month. We then embarked on a beach holiday, along with my boyfriend, to a romantic Greek island...."

Writes Mireille Silcoff "I Paid My Child $100 to Read a Book" (NYT).

Should you use money to get your kids to do things you can't reason them into doing? Money becomes the reasoning. Money talks, as they say. 

I don't know. But I do know you shouldn't take a 12-year-old daughter along on something you call "a romantic Greek island" "with my boyfriend."

What was the "romantic Greek island"? Santorini?

"No, you keen-eyed MAGA sleuths, Biden’s aides didn’t schedule an early debate so that they could replace him after he flails."

"Nor did they engineer Hunter Biden’s conviction just to look virtuous. Democrats, it is not the case that if journalists just stop talking about Biden’s age, many Americans miraculously won’t notice it. Nor are there tea leaves auguring a revolt against Trump at the Republican convention. A respected public intellectual privately promoted that idea to me. And Michelle Obama will not — abracadabra! — be riding to the rescue.... Indulging such illusions is dangerous. Those of us who believe that Trump’s return to the White House would be ruinous must prosaically and persistently make the case for Biden’s superiority, flaws and all. We must plan, plod, slog. No sorcery will save us."

Writes Frank Bruni, in "The Election of Magical Thinking" (NYT).

Is it just dangerous illusion and hope of "sorcery" that has us thinking about ways to replace Biden as the Democratic candidate?! Biden plainly looks and sounds as though he's not capable of performing the job anymore. Trusting him even until January 2025 seems like more of a dangerous game of magical thinking. Bruni has written his column to pooh-pooh those of us who are seriously worried about Biden and to take credit for pretending there's no problem worth talking about. 

But I don't think Bruni is delusional. I think he's bullshitting in print but in his head he's got it figured out. It's too hard to replace Biden* and it seems less likely to work than just crossing your fingers and — la la la — moving along as if nothing is amiss and you are crazy if you think so.** And you know who's really crazy? Donald Trump.

_______________________________

* Word that does not appear in Bruni's column: Kamala.

** There's a word for this: gaslighting.

"So much of our culture today, with young people, is centered around their feelings... Feelings are indicators, they’re not facts...."

"Parents teaching their kids about safe spaces, and 'I feel uncomfortable'... It’s, like, You know what? The world is not a safe space. You have to find the comfort. It’s mostly uncomfortable.... I don’t like kids."

Said RuPaul, quoted by Ronan Farrow, in "RuPaul Doesn’t See How That’s Any of Your Business/The drag star brought the form mainstream, and made an empire out of queer expression. Now he fears 'the absolute worst'" (The New Yorker).

Later, RuPaul seemed to want to revise that "I don't like kids" remark. He's quoted as saying that he'd "be a great parent" and that he "fucking love[s]" the "white noise of joy" of kids playing outside in the schoolyard near his cottage.

Farrow tells us RuPaul is "a proponent of psychedelics": 

"The way I experience love seems to be very different from the so-called neurotypical experience."

"My experience of love seems less emotional. If I had to explain what love feels like to me, I would say symbiotic. So, a relationship that’s beneficial to both people involved. Not transactional, not possessive, not ego-driven. Mutual homeostasis. It’s not that I’m unable to access emotions or empathy. It’s that my experience of those emotions is different...."

Says Patric Gagne, author of the memoir "Sociopath," in the interview "What It’s Like to Be a Sociopath" (NYT)(free access link).

"A quiet, introspective bachelor, who wore a signet ring with the Latin word for 'caution,' he hated conflict..."

"... and had the courtly manners of his Iberian ancestry. But his virtuous life only made religious believers even more furious: How could a Godless man be morally irreproachable? Here, then, was a clash which we can still recognize today, between those who believe that moral behavior can only come from religious belief, and those who think it can emanate from reason...."

Writes Ian Buruma, in "The 17th-Century Heretic We Could Really Use Now" (NYT).

"I have this fear of being buried alive in a box."

 

That scene from the old Bob Newhart show [see correction below] was cited by the psychiatrist/neuroscientist Judson Brewer, when he was asked about C.B.T. by Joshua Rothman, who's written this new New Yorker article, "Can Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Change Our Minds? The theory behind C.B.T. rests on an unlikely idea—that we can be rational after all."

When Obama was a slang term.

Looking for something else — whether I'd ever blogged a particular video (I had) — I found this discussion, from 2009, of the use of "Obama" as a slang term:

August 22, 2009

Sorry. I don't believe it was *ever* cool/hip to call something/someone "Obama" to mean it/he was cool/hip.

But the NYT nevertheless has this style piece:

LAST week, if you wanted to use the latest slang to tell a friend he was cool, you could have called him “Obama,” as in: “Dude, you’re rocking the new Pre phone? You are so Obama.”

This week? Best not to risk it.

The man's lament: "I want to comfort her within reason, and now she won't let me."

From "AITA for not taking my wife's possible [miscarriage] seriously?" (Reddit).

"[T]he human mind is a surprisingly efficient and even elegant system that operates with small amounts of information..."

"... it seeks not to infer brute correlations among data points but to create explanations.... The crux of machine learning is description and prediction; it does not posit any causal mechanisms or physical laws. Of course, any human-style explanation is not necessarily correct; we are fallible. But this is part of what it means to think: To be right, it must be possible to be wrong. Intelligence consists not only of creative conjectures but also of creative criticism...."

Write Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull in "The False Promise of ChatGPT" (NYT).

Is Putin "rational actor"? — Jake Tapper asks Biden. Biden answers "he is a rational actor... I just think it’s irrational."

You have to separate the "he" and the "it" to make sense of it.

Here's the video. I'll quote from the transcript:

"Protest is a kind of theater, as abortion rights activists who dressed as characters from 'The Handmaid’s Tale' outside the home of Justice Amy Coney Barrett know."

"The performance is not just for the target of the protests but also for anyone who sees it via news images or video or social media. The fact is, a group of people targeting just one person, at home, particularly at night, appears menacing.... Florida’s lawmakers went so far as to ban 'picketing and protesting' at any person’s private residence.... I believe such bans to be unconstitutional. The right of all Americans to peacefully assemble must be protected. But that doesn’t mean that protesting at the homes of public officials is effective.... I expect that those who gathered outside my home also felt shut out from power when they screamed at me [in December 2020]. But showing up at my home to shout falsehoods about an election because they didn’t like the results did not help their cause.... These protesters attempted to bully me into abdicating my duty to protect the will of the people of Michigan. But the people who made me fear for my family that night also emboldened me to do my job with integrity.... [P]rotesting outside an official’s home is rarely if ever effective at achieving the goals of those gathering — and oftentimes, it backfires."

From "Protesting at Judges’ Homes Must Remain Legal. That Doesn’t Make It Effective" by Michigan secretary of state Jocelyn Benson (NYT).

If sensible people realize that a protest outside of a public official's home is likely to backfire, then we may infer that people who protest outside a public official's home are irrational. That's an idea you might want to use if you need to argue that the bans on these protests are constitutional. Benson makes a good argument, but if it works, it won't work on 100% of the protesters who would otherwise take to the street right outside someone's house. The ones that are left are those who are least likely to care about lawful, peaceful persuasion.

But also: Protests are not really about rational persuasion. They're about stirring up emotion, and emotion is inextricably intertwined with even the most earnest efforts at rational decisionmaking. I assume that the elite, educated, accomplished Ms. Benson endeavors to "do [her] job with integrity," but I don't believe she can exclude all feeling. In the case of the pro-Trump protesters screaming at her house, she felt "emboldened" — that is emotional. The protesters stirred up her fighting spirit. Yes, it backfired for them, but — by her own report — she was not impassive and solidly grounded in neutrality.

"If you wanted to kill a bunch of MAGA voters in the middle of the heartland, how better than to target them and their kids with this deadly fentanyl?..."

"It does look intentional. It’s like Joe Biden wants to punish the people who didn’t vote for him and opening up the floodgates to the border is one way to do it." 

Said J.D. Vance, quoted in "J.D. Vance’s claim that Biden is targeting ‘MAGA voters’ with fentanyl," a WaPo Fact Checker piece by Glenn Kessler.

I know this is a "4 Pinocchios" review, but I haven't read it yet. I just want to make some observations of my own before seeing how Kessler frames this.